While she slowly came to her senses, he rained little kisses on her face.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too.” His eyes still closed, he rolled off her and arranged her against his side. “But remind me never to make love to you in your parents’ house.”
“What?” She wiggled closer. “Why?”
“You screamed,” he informed her, his tone a mix of pride and amusement. “I told you I’d like to hear that, so I thank you for obliging me.”
“I did not scream.”
“You did.” He idly skimmed her bare hip, making her feel as though she might melt. “And a beautiful scream it was, too.”
Would he lie to her? Kit, the man who’d sacrificed his dream for the sake of honesty? If she were to be honest with herself, there’d been a moment when she’d been so out of her mind with pleasure, the house could have burned around her and she wouldn’t have noticed.
She supposed that, right then, she might have screamed.
“Well, at least I didn’t yip,” she said and kissed him before he could laugh.
SIXTY-FIVE
THE NEXT morning, after a leisurely bath for two in Kit’s enormous tub—which Rose decided she could get used to—followed by breakfast with her sisters, he walked her up the hill to the pawnshop.
The night shouldn’t have changed anything, but somehow it had. She’d loved Kit desperately before she’d shared his bed, but now she felt a new closeness. And she also sensed a sadness buried within him, a sadness that spilled over onto herself. She wanted more than ever for him to make things right with his sister.
“I’ll wait out here,” he said when they arrived.
“I want you two to talk.”
“I’ll be here if she’s willing.”
Bent over a tray full of rings, Ellen looked up when the bell jingled. “Rose!” She came hurrying out from behind the counter.
Rose hugged her tight, then set her away. “You look good.” Beneath her simple peach dress, Ellen’s stomach barely looked rounded. “How are you feeling?”
“I haven’t puked in at least half an hour.”
“Oh.”
“It’s not that bad.” Ellen grinned. “I make up for it at night; I vow and swear, I’ve never been so hungry.”
Violet had never felt sick when carrying her children; Rose could only hope it would be the same for her. Her hand went to her own abdomen as she suddenly realized she could already be with child. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that.
Quickly she held out the book, relieved to be handing it over. “Here. Take it. And here are the translations.” She pulled a few sheets of folded paper from her drawstring purse.
“Oh, thank you!” Ellen opened them and looked at the last one. Her eyes widened as she read a stanza. “I didn’t know this was quite so…” She slanted a glance to where her husband sat in a corner industriously going over paperwork, then back down to the translated words. “‘With my legs around your neck,’” she quoted under her breath, “‘somehow you’ve got your yard buried inside my…’ Mercy me. I’m not certain Thomas is ready for this.”
Ellen didn’t look ready for it, either. “Everyone at court found it entirely too intriguing,” Rose told her. “But Kit just laughed.”
Ellen refolded the pages and tucked them into the book. “I hope you two will be happy,” she said formally.
“You are coming to our wedding?”
“No.” She gazed down at the tray of rings on the counter. “No, I’m not.”
“Ellen, if you don’t attend, then someday you’ll be very sorry. You cannot refuse to speak to your brother forever.”
Ellen slid a garnet ring onto her finger, then pulled it off. “I cannot imagine that he cares.”
Rose waited until she looked up. “You know he does.”
“Then he should give me my dowry. He has no right to withhold it just because I didn’t marry a man of his choosing.”
At this point, Rose suspected Kit would hand over everything he owned if his sister would just stop this nonsense. Neither he nor Ellen would budge first. She wanted to knock their two heads together.
But Ellen was just plain wrong. “He has every right. He earned that money.”
“I earned it, too,” Ellen shot back, her eyes as green as Kit’s when he was upset. “I suffered for that money every bit as much he did. More. My parents were dead, and my big brother left me with a little old lady. True, she gave me nice clothes and made sure I learned to read and write. But she also expected me to wait on her hand and foot. Whenever Kit bothered to visit, I used to beg him to take me with him, away from there, anywhere…” Her voice dropped, and she took a deep, shuddering breath. “He promised me that someday I’d live a better life, and I figure it’s my due.”
Kit considered Lady St. Vincent his savior, but there were two sides to every story. To Ellen, apparently the baroness had been a prison guard. Still, Rose couldn’t see where Kit had had much of a choice.
“What do you expect he could have done, Ellen? How could he have cared for you? Supported you? He was sixteen with no skills, but a grand opportunity. If he’d stayed with you in the village of Hawkridge, what do you imagine he’d be doing today? Do you think he’d be an architect? Do you reckon he’d have managed to save eleven thousand pounds for his beloved little sister? And he certainly couldn’t have brought you to school, and later to Oxford—”
“I know,” Ellen ground out miserably. Her jaw was tight, her cheeks pink. “He had no choice; I know it. But that didn’t make it easy for me.”
Rose laid a hand on her arm.
